I bought the Slackware 7 package made by Walnut Creek and it includes a ready to boot Slackware installation on one of the CDs. That was in November 1999. I assume they still do that.
I used it a lot to fix MS-Windows installations that wouldn't boot anymore, or to backup windows installations over the network. I also used it to partition new drives so I could reserve space for a future Linux installation etc. It will even run XWindows without doing any configuration, but I didn't use that much.
In March 2000 I tried to get a patent on something that I myself found reasonably obvious.
A friend of mine had suddenly seen a way of doing something which noone has thought of in the past 20 years, obvious though it might be. There is simply no software that does it.
To start a new company and produce the software ourselves, we will have to compete with market leaders, some of which are multinationals operating in Germany and Belgium as well as in Holland.
So the way to go seemed to get a software patent. This would ensure that we would get 3 to 5 years to make our product and set up the company.
However, the Dutch patent office told us that one can not get a software patent unless it is a new algorithm or something like that.
So basically I have two messages in this post:
1. The Dutch software patent office is probably better than the ones I have seen so much ado about
2. I am now well buggered to not get my patent, while other people in the world get a patent for one-click shopping. My "invention" was obvious, but at least nobody has done it in the past 20 years!
So please think of this what you may. My view on the matter is perhaps clouded because I want my patent, but ya'll might view this as the way to go. If all of Europe will deal with patents the way Holland does, you don't have that much to worry about.
My opinion? I don't really care. Every government I have seen has a way of abusing every rule they ever made. They will probably be taxing patents by the year 2002.
I fully agree. However, it is not new users I have in mind, but rather experienced users. I think they would benefit just as much, if not more, than beginners.
You see, if you know a lot about how things generally work, and how things are supposed to fit together, 1 example will make a whole lot clear.
It surprises me that there are so few examples in the man pages for Linux. On other flavours of unix it is very common to see examples at the end of nearly every man page. That is truly helpful. And not much work for the writer of the manpage, since he has just written in great detail how things work, and thus must know about every option anyway!
Yes, and "they" made a custom IDE cable to get it to work. That means that when you simply plug the HD in with a standard cable, nothing happens. That's when the hacking starts.
I was at SANE 98, and I just wanted to let you all know that I found it very interesting. The whole thing was well organized, and the speakers for that year were all very well known and all had wel prepared information. If the subjects for this year look interesting to you, I would definately advise you to go!
I haven't seen this years schedule, but I already feel like going there.
And make sure you see the insane quiz. SANE98 had Beatles and Monty Python categories, and it was hilarious!
I am very sorry to see that the slashdot public, or let's say most of the folks that posted in this thread, are really not behaving very intelligent.
I have been reading Slashdot for well over a year now, and this is the first time I see MANY people actually believing FUD. You, of all people, should really know better.
In the US, Scientology has been officially recognised as a _religion_. Furtheremore, I would advise all of you to LOOK at what Scientology has actually accomplished in the past 49 years, rather than take anyone's word for it.
Finally let me explain the copyright on those words: they were registered so that Scientology actually has a defense against FUD, and so that the material is not changed over time by people who don't like the way it is. And this has proven necessary.
I have always ignored people who commented on Scientology as you all do in this thread; always because I knew they were to stupid (to see for instance, that unlike some other religions that in the past have murdered each other to force their religion onto someone else etc., Scientology only takes steps to keep people from altering their material). The Slashdot public, however, deserves some special treatment, and I hope that my post has made at least some of you realise that FUD is not only applicable to computers.
There are several reasons a person might not trust his government...A..B..C..D: I personally think that it is:
E) : the government(s) are being influenced by a group or several groups that are in fact continuously trying to ruin the lives of citizens.
I am not bothered by the few people you refer to in C, because they are very government specific, so this statement is not an issue when looking at the governments in general.
Yes, I agree that A and B are probably both true, but that they are not primarily responsible for (my) mistrust.
I can think of 2 reasons why wiretapping would be somthing to be concerned about.
1. It makes discrimination very easy. This would be an issue in case of war for instance (think about what happened to the Jews).
2. We just don't trust the authorities, do we!? It seems like people are afraid the FBI, CIA, Police, NSA and others will use the wiretapping against honest people; and not just to get the bad people. I think we are quite some way from BigBrother, but I hope people realize that the current government also is far from trustworthy.
Both problems are not easily solved. --include standard quote here about this being beyond the scope of this simple email-- What we might think about right now is the needless overhead this is going to present to routers, firewalls etc. I don't think the government is going to compensate with financial support for increasing bandwidth:)
Looking on the bright side: Hackers can have a load of fun exploiting it during the first few years, and sensitive data can still be encrypted.;)
Slashdot Mirror
I bought the Slackware 7 package made by Walnut Creek and it includes a ready to boot Slackware installation on one of the CDs.
That was in November 1999. I assume they still do that.
I used it a lot to fix MS-Windows installations that wouldn't boot anymore, or to backup windows installations over the network.
I also used it to partition new drives so I could reserve space for a future Linux installation etc.
It will even run XWindows without doing any configuration, but I didn't use that much.
You did not even count your own time on trying to block them! The company pays for your time too.
In March 2000 I tried to get a patent on something that I myself found reasonably obvious.
A friend of mine had suddenly seen a way of doing something which noone has thought of in the past 20 years, obvious though it might be. There is simply no software that does it.
To start a new company and produce the software ourselves, we will have to compete with market leaders, some of which are multinationals operating in Germany and Belgium as well as in Holland.
So the way to go seemed to get a software patent. This would ensure that we would get 3 to 5 years to make our product and set up the company.
However, the Dutch patent office told us that one can not get a software patent unless it is a new algorithm or something like that.
So basically I have two messages in this post:
1. The Dutch software patent office is probably better than the ones I have seen so much ado about
2. I am now well buggered to not get my patent, while other people in the world get a patent for one-click shopping. My "invention" was obvious, but at least nobody has done it in the past 20 years!
So please think of this what you may. My view on the matter is perhaps clouded because I want my patent, but ya'll might view this as the way to go. If all of Europe will deal with patents the way Holland does, you don't have that much to worry about.
My opinion? I don't really care. Every government I have seen has a way of abusing every rule they ever made. They will probably be taxing patents by the year 2002.
I wish they would share THEIR data, not my data.
If they put a Ethernet card in that thing so I can get the videos from the HD, I would buy one tomorrow.
I fully agree.
However, it is not new users I have in mind, but rather experienced users. I think they would benefit just as much, if not more, than beginners.
You see, if you know a lot about how things generally work, and how things are supposed to fit together, 1 example will make a whole lot clear.
It surprises me that there are so few examples in the man pages for Linux.
On other flavours of unix it is very common to see examples at the end of nearly every man page.
That is truly helpful. And not much work for the writer of the manpage, since he has just written in great detail how things work, and thus must know about every option anyway!
Yes, and "they" made a custom IDE cable to get it to work.
That means that when you simply plug the HD in with a standard cable, nothing happens. That's when the hacking starts.
If the subjects for this year look interesting to you, I would definately advise you to go!
I haven't seen this years schedule, but I already feel like going there.
And make sure you see the insane quiz. SANE98 had Beatles and Monty Python categories, and it was hilarious!
I am very sorry to see that the slashdot public, or let's say most of the folks that posted in this thread, are really not behaving very intelligent.
I have been reading Slashdot for well over a year now, and this is the first time I see MANY people actually believing FUD.
You, of all people, should really know better.
In the US, Scientology has been officially recognised as a _religion_.
Furtheremore, I would advise all of you to LOOK at what Scientology has actually accomplished in the past 49 years, rather than take anyone's word for it.
Finally let me explain the copyright on those words: they were registered so that Scientology actually has a defense against FUD, and so that the material is not changed over time by people who don't like the way it is. And this has proven necessary.
I have always ignored people who commented on Scientology as you all do in this thread; always because I knew they were to stupid (to see for instance, that unlike some other religions that in the past have murdered each other to force their religion onto someone else etc., Scientology only takes steps to keep people from altering their material).
The Slashdot public, however, deserves some special treatment, and I hope that my post has made at least some of you realise that FUD is not only applicable to computers.
I personally think that it is:
E) : the government(s) are being influenced by a group or several groups that are in fact continuously trying to ruin the lives of citizens.
I am not bothered by the few people you refer to in C, because they are very government specific, so this statement is not an issue when looking at the governments in general.
Yes, I agree that A and B are probably both true, but that they are not primarily responsible for (my) mistrust.
1. It makes discrimination very easy. This would be an issue in case of war for instance (think about what happened to the Jews).
2. We just don't trust the authorities, do we!?
It seems like people are afraid the FBI, CIA, Police, NSA and others will use the wiretapping against honest people; and not just to get the bad people.
I think we are quite some way from BigBrother, but I hope people realize that the current government also is far from trustworthy.
Both problems are not easily solved. --include standard quote here about this being beyond the scope of this simple email-- What we might think about right now is the needless overhead this is going to present to routers, firewalls etc. :)
I don't think the government is going to compensate with financial support for increasing bandwidth
Looking on the bright side: Hackers can have a load of fun exploiting it during the first few years, and sensitive data can still be encrypted. ;)